Singapore Travel - 2014

Traveling in Singapore is easy; thanks to the Subway I was able to travel to areas like Clarke Quay, Chinatown and the famous Marina Bay without much hassle.

Marina Bay Sands

Elevated Garden Walkway in Chinatown

Batam - Indonesia

Batam Island is situated just south of Singapore. We traveled to Indonesia just for a couple of days via the Ferry. The Island is very different compared to the developed Singapore City. In Nagoya giant Hotels arises in the middle of slums – I have not seen such anywhere else in the world!!! I see much potential in tourism industry if they can clean up and organize the island.

A small entertainment pier near the Batam Center

Jet Ski Rider jumping on waves created by the Ferry

Arcade - Independence Square

Like the Race Course complex Colombo has a lot of old buildings that needs renovation. The government recently renovated the building complex near the Independence Square and its called Arcade. For a government project it is very impressive. The shops and restaurants target the high-end consumer but the place is for everyone to visit.

High-end shops

Water Fountain and Pond underneath

Corridors

The Lion Statues

Floating Market - Colombo

When you imagine Pettah what comes to your mind is a crowded stinky and not so nice place. Well things have been changing a little bit in the past few years. If you go to the Front Street in Pettah what is used to be some years ago and what its now is much different.

The Floating Market is a man made shopping complex on the edge of the dirty part of the Beira Lake. The water is still green and it smells a bit here and there. But compared to what things used to be at least now things looks nice.

Floating Market – View 1

Floating shops

Floating Market – View 2

Furious 7 - Official Trailer

Furious 7 - Official Trailer

A Tribute to Paul Walker

A Tribute to Paul Walker

Formula E

It's said to be the highest class of competition for one-make, single-seater and electrically powered racing cars. But I doubt the success of this series in the immediate future despite the marketing campaign. If you take a look at the driver's lineup you can see there are a lot of ex Formula 1 Drivers involved. Needless to say all of them failed to secure a driver seat in Formula 1 this year.

Now that Formula 1 is effectively a Hybrid Car race I would like see Formula 1 going fully green with Electric power one day. Everyone including myself will miss the engine noise but it'll be revolutionary.

Kandalama

Heritance Kandalama Hotel is famous for its unique landscape and eco friendliness. We went to the hotel on 16th August 2014 and it truly was a beauty. The only pain was the long walk back and forth to your rooms.

Swimming pool at night

Camouflaged Hotel Building

Elephant by the lake

Tourists riding an elephant

R+L=J

If you are a fan of Game of Thrones here is an interesting theory about Jon Snow...

R+L=J Theory

Mercedes Split Turbo

In the 2014 Formula 1 Season there is one team that stands out at the front at every race – Mercedes F1 team. The main reason behind this is the advantage over the Turbo and the Engine Packaging. All Mercedes Engine cars have the split type turbo giving them a big performance advantage over all their competitors.

Mercedes Split Turbo explained

Vesak 2014

For the past 4 years or so the same decorations were done around Gangarama Temple. It’s high time they change the setup and the decorations. I felt there is nothing I haven’t seen before and it was waste of time going there.

Reflections of lights on Beira Lake

Boat on Beira Lake

The 10 Hot new emerging countries

Saw an interesting video on Bloomberg and I’m a bit surprised to see Sri Lanka to be among the top 10 of the emerging economies.

Bloomberg video on top 10 emerging countries

Some believe that the growth indicators published by the Sri Lankan authorities are manipulated but we’ll not know the truth anytime soon!

GDP Growth in Sri Lanka

Source(s): www.bloomberg.com, www.tradingeconomics.com

Birds in my backyard

Spotted a bird building a nest in my backyard. This tiny bird is lightning fast and it does not want to pose for the camera like the kingfishers.

Carrying items to build it's nest

Ape Gama

Due to CHOGM there have been many changes around Colombo. Near the Parliament Grounds the place we used to call "Janakala Kendraya" has been changed and now it's called "Ape Gama" meaning "Our Village" It has made up to be an old traditional Sri Lankan village. They charge Rs. 100/- per person at the entrance but whether there is anything really interesting to see is a question?

A woman making "Halapa"

A farmer

Z-Score

There were some contrivances when it comes to GCE Advance Level results because of the use of Z-Score. About 10 years ago I did my A Levels and the Z-Score I got was 1.8331. It was a very good result but I wasn’t happy with some grades and I decided to ask for re-correction. I was never informed of any change to the result and after I got selected to the University I assumed the re-correction didn’t work out and the result I got was final.

I only had the certificates issued by the school for all this time and in case there could be a use in the future I decided to get the GCE O Level and A Level certificates from the Ministry of Education (or the Exam Department), after a couple of days I received the official certificates and found out my Z-Score has changed to 1.9089 – which is a considerable difference. The problem is I only found out my true results after 10 years! If I have known my real Z-Score 10 years back, would my entire life been different?

Seenigama

Having enjoyed the sea off Hikkaduwa never really thought of snorkeling or diving in the nearby Seenigama. Our trip to Hikkaduwa was cut short at Seenigama on 15th January 2014. It does have a reef, relatively smaller but would be good for the divers. However the depth is a bit too much so it might not be ideal for snorkeling. Still if you want to see the best of ocean life in the region it remains to be Hikkaduwa.

Seenigama Devalaya

Colorful necklaces for the Devalaya